mmpOllii llliiilii pilliili' 1 »m I Our Neighbors: The Chinese By Joseph King Goodrich A handy-volume series, treating in an interesting, informing way the history and characteris- tics of " Our Neighbors " of other lands Ready: THE JAPANESE THE CHINESE THE FILIPINOS THE DANES OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION Each, 16mo, illustrated, $1.25 net A (TOR In Female Cosiume Our Neighbors: The Chinese BY JOSEPH KING GOODRICH Sometime Professor in the Imperial College, Kyoto WITH 16 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS CHICAGO BROWT^E & HOWELL COMPANY 191S COPYRIGHT, 1913 BY THE PLIMPTON PRESS Copyright in England All rights reserved PLliLISHED, OCTOBER, 1913 THB-PLIMPTON-PRESS NORWOOD-MASS'U-S-A THE UBTIARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA _ — CONTENTS CHAPTEB PAOK I. Who are the Chinese ? 1 II. The Republic op China 16 III. Myths about Creation and other Things 30 IV. Chinese Literature and Folk-lore . . 45 V. Education: Former and Modern . . 59 VI. Home and Family Life 72 VII. Occupations 87 VIII. Pleasures of Life 101 IX. Social and Official Classes . . . 114 X. Court Life: Ancient and Modern . . 127 XL The People of the Eighteen Provinces 140 Xll. The Mongols and the Manchus . . 154 XIII. The Tibetans and their Country . . 167 XIV. The Mohametans 180 XV. How THE Chinese Came to be Known to the Rest of the World .... 194 XVI. A Chinese Boy's Life 207 XVII. A Chinese Girl's Life 220 XVni. Tii.\vELiNG IN China 231 XIX. How the Chinese Live 243 XX. The World and the New Republic . . 254 Bibliography 203 Index 271 ILLUSTRATIONS Actor in Female Costume Froniitpiece Pagoda near Canton facing page 40 Main Street, Mukden 90 A Fruit and Vegetable Market 96 Women with Small Feet 118 A Public Garden, Mukden, Manchuria 124 Manchu Mausoleum: Interior of Grounds . ... 138 Mausoleum of a Manchu Ruler 156 Manchu Mother and Children 158 Manchu Woman in Full Dress 160 Manchu Geisha 164 Manchu Married Woman: The Headdress Indicates the Fact 166 Street Scene. Mukden: Temple Wall 216 Railway Station, Mukden: Water Carts .... 234 Night-soil Gatherers 246 An Official Residence 248 Our Neighbors: The Chine se CHAPTER I WHO ABE THE CHINESE? IT is easier to ask this question than it is to answer it. Of course, if we mean nothing more than the people of the pres- ent Kepublic of China it is not dififtcult to give some sort of a reply which will be satis- factory to most inquirers. It is true even when we think of the Chinese Eepublic in its widest range and include not only the actual Chinese themselves, but all the other peoples who are officially citizens of the Re- public. Some of those citizens who do not answer to the name Chinese, have always given more or less trouble, and at the present moment, citizens of Mongolia and of the extreme northwestern and western provinces of Cliina, are showing anything but a clieerful willingness to respect the new government and to become peaceful citizens of the youngest republic, but tlie oldest government in the wliole world. To this 1 2 OUE NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE subject we shall return in a subsequent chapter. There are two ways by which answers of a kind may be given to the question, " Who are the Chinese?" One refers to the posi- tion amongst the rest of mankind that near- ly all the citizens of China are given by those who make the study of mankind their proper study. Ethnologists do not hesi- tate to say that practically all the inhabi- tants of the Chinese Republic belong to the yellow race; that they are Mongoloids. That is true; but do we know just whence the yellow-skinned people came originally? No, we do not. I am afraid we must give up the idea that all the seventeen hundred million inhabi- tants of the world came from just one original Adam and Eve, and that the tremendous differences which are to be noted in anatomy, skin, hair, and many other physical details, are all just the effect of climate, physical and climatic surround- ings, conditions of life, etc. Even the strictest Christian evolutionist has to admit that it is probable the development of the human being from a lower type of animal life, took place in several different parts of the globe, and it is reasonable specula- tion to say that probably this evolution of the very first individuals of the several WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 3 types of mankind, took place at times which were widely separated, if we measure by years or even by centuries. Now as to speculation, it is interesting to read what such a brilliant ethnologist as Count Gobineau says of the evolution of the three great types of mankind. He con- sidered it sufficient to limit the varieties of mankind to that number, and he distin- guished them as the white, the yellow, and the black. Other ethnologists have not been satisfied with this limitation of the numbers of primary types, and have felt it to be necessary to add the red and the brown. The former of these permits us to put the many tribes of American Indians — all in the North, the Central and the South Amer- icas — into a separate group from the yel- low; the latter permits us to separate the peoples of southern Asia from the blacks of Africa and some of the Pacific Islands. It seems more satisfactory to divide the peoples of the earth into five races than to limit them to three; because it is difficult to nmke ourselves believe that the ancient civilization of Central and South America was that of a people who were precisely the same in all respects as the yellow races of Asia. So, too, it is almost impossible to put some of the brown peoples of Rritisli India, Southern Asia, and the East Indian 4 OUR neighbors: the Chinese Islands, in the same class as the true Cau- casian, while it is repulsive to think of them as precisely the same as the typical African negro. Count Grobineau put forward the theory that the yellow race was originally created in America. Of course he did not pretend to say in just what part of our continent the great miracle of evolution from brute to human was performed, yet he seemed to think there w^ere some advantages for the peoples of the western part of North Amer- ica over those of the eastern ; and that these advantages were shared by the Peruvians and some other peoples. In taking this strange position, Gobineau intimated that the yellow race has a tremendously long record in point of time, and in that respect was a race of great dignity. Because, if that theory is correct, the migration of the yellow people to Asia must have been at a time so long ago as to have made no marks which at present survive in the myths and legends of the Chinese or their predecessors in any part of Asia. The yellow emigrants are supposed to have made their way across the narrow Bering Sea into Kamchatka; then by the way of Siberia until they had skirted the Khan Oula and the Altai ^Mountains which do seem to separate Siberia from Mongolia. WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 5 After that they passed down through Tur- kestan and the countries west of the moun- tains called Tian Shan until they reached the Transcaspian District of the Russian Empire on the eastern shores of the Cas- pian Sea and the northern parts of Bokhara, Afghanistan, Persia, etc. It is probably well, although purely speculative, that such migration should be borne in mind, because it does tend to give a clue as to why certain of those Mongolians in later and historic times were found in places from whence they came. It also has some tendency towards explaining why the theory of another eminent ethnologist may be correct. That theory is now to be discussed. Professor Terrien de Lacouperie was a Frenchman who went to China about the middle of the nineteenth century to engage in commerce. He studied the language and eventually turned from commerce to pursue ethnological research, and when he returned to Europe he became professor of compara- tive philology of tlie Southeast Asiatic languages in University College, London. lie advanced the theory that somewhere about the twenty-tliird century before Christ a large body of people began a migration eastward from the country south of the Cas- pian Sea and made their way through the 6 OUR neighbors: the Chinese passes of the Tian Shan, through Eastern Turkestan on into the region of the Gobi Desert, and continued their march until they had reached the upper waters of the Yellow River, or Hoang-ho, and then di- verged towards the south into the country which we call China. To support his views, Prof. Terrien de Lacouperie points to what he considers a connection between the written language of the Akkadians and that of the Chinese. The former people may be somewhat loosely defined as the Babylonians, for in the cunei- form inscriptions the phrase " the land of Sumer and Akkadia " appears to have de- noted Babylonia in general. It is true that there is a curious similiarity between some of the Akkadian words and those of China in both sound and sense : that is, if we are perfectly sure about our reading of the cune- iform characters. In certain other matters there is too a resemblance between the southwestern parts of Asia and the extreme eastern por- tion thereof. Some of these likenesses are detected in the earliest known religious be- lief of the Chinese and the old Babylonians ; as well as in social matters and rudimen- tary science. Susiana was the same as the Shushan of the Bible. x4nother familiar name is Elam, and from the time of Darius WHO AEE THE CHINESE? 7 I, the city Susa, the capital, was the chief residence of Achajmenian kings. It was certainly a fruitful and well-watered coun- try and had access to the Persian Gulf. There were twelve feudal chiefs or " Pas- tor Princes " who governed under the su- preme authority of the king. Now, it is said that there was a certain ruler over a portion of what was much later the Empire of China. This ruler is known as Emperor Yao, and he is declared to have reigned from 2085 to 2004 B. C. He is likewise said to have appointed twelve " Pastors " to superintend the affairs of his dominion, as if in imitation of the " Pastor Princes " of Susiana, In that latter country the people in an- cient times worshiped one supreme god and honored six subordinate deities. In China, during the time of Yao and for years after him, the people worshiped Shang-ti, the one great ruler of heaven, and six " Honored Ones," although it is impossible to determine precisely who or what those six were. When Chinese history became reasonably established as something firm upon which to base speculation, that is, probably with the beginning of the Chou dynasty (1122 to 225 B. C), certainly some time before tliat dynasty was overthrown, the knowledge which the learned men in 8 OUR neighbors: the Chinese China had of astronomy and medicine was so nearly like that of the people of Mesa- potamia, that it is hardly safe to say there could not have been some communication between the two peoples in earlier times. Another curious thing is that the Chinese a very long time ago saw the probabilities in the way of development which would come from a system of internal waterways and canals to link together the great or smaller rivers. The similarity between this scheme and that of Susiana, by which the people of the latter made their way com- fortably to the Persian Gulf, is very strik- ing. So far as the physical probabilities of the great migration which has been mentioned are concerned, there was nothing absolutely impossible about it. Authenic history tells us of some remarkable trcls. Consider, for example, the migration of six hundred thousand Kalmuk Tartars from Russian territory to the Chinese borders, about Avhich De Quincey tells us, and the moving of a body of people whom we afterwards called Chinese, from Babylonia to eavstern Central Asia, is not at all incomprehensible. Yet there is always the doubt which nat- urally comes when we think of such a peo- ple leaving a home in every way so de- sirable to face the apparent difficulties of WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 9 penetrating the bordering mountains and into the great unknown that was beyond those stern and forbidding hills. Another view which seems to discredit Prof. Ter- rien de Lacouperie's theory is that within the time of authentic history, there have not been in the Caspian Sea region any con- siderable numbers of people who appear to be ethnically allied to the Chinese. Of course the intervening centuries, many scores of them perhaps, may have obliter- ated all such resemblance from the few peo- ple of the same type whom the emigrants left behind them. But if we know nothing as to who the Chinese are ethnologically, we may safely say that they are not the aboriginal inhabi- tants of the country which we call China. They themselves have no such name for themselves as that. They have a number of others, liowever, with all of which w^e need not here burden ourselves. Chung-kwoh, " the central or middle country or kingdom," is the commonest, and that is the one se- lected by the Republic. From this comes naturally " men of Chung-kwoh." As I have explained in another place (see "The Coming China") this Middle King- dom did not, I am sure, mean that the Chinese assumed their country to be the absolute center of the whole world and all 10 OUR neighbors: the CHINESE the rest an unfortunate fringe of outside lands. To their mind the word " middle " conveyed rather the idea of a fortunate land whose people were satisfied to preserve a conservative, central course between the ex- treme of warlike aggression on the one hand, and of slothful repose on the other. To be sure the Chinese did, until a few years ago, call other peoples " Outside Bar- barians." This came from a sense of superiority to the hordes of savages who sur- rounded them on all sides except the south. In that direction there were people whom the Chinese might have regarded as their equals, had it not been that the Himalaya Mountains made an almost impassable bar- rier so that there was for ages no intercourse. As far as including the peoples of Europe in the list of " Outer Barbarians," one can hardly wonder at the Chinese doing so after reading of the way the first of those strangers behaved, when intercourse be- tween the Chinese and Europeans was re- sumed in the fifteenth century, after having been interrupted for more than five hundred years. The Chinese used to take great pride in calling themselves " Sons of Han," or " Men of T'ang." The first of these favorite ti- tles came from the fact tliat Liu P'ang as- cended the throne in B. C. 206, taking for WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 11 himself the title Kao Ti, " August Emperor," and gave his dynasty, which he then es- tablished, the name of Han, from the small state in the greater district of Shensi over which he had ruled, and the river of the same name near which he was born. As the Han may properly be considered the first national dynasty, it is natural that the peo- ple should have taken pride in calling them- selves " Sons of Han." The people of the great southern province, Kwan-tung — we call it Canton — were an exception, for they always refused to speak of themselves in that way. Eight centuries later another famous dynasty ruled over China. It was the T'ang and it lasted for two hundred and eighty-nine years, from G18 to 907 A. D.. Its first emperors were statesmen and generals of marked ability and the Chinese opinion of that group of sovereigns is shown by the fact that one of the names they sometimes call themselves by was " The men of T'ang." I do not know that our Chinese neighbors will discard those patriotic and honorable names, now that they have so effectually put away all tilings of the past ; yet I rather hope they will not. Giving up as an unsatisfactory and un- necessary task, the effort to establish the primary origin of the Chinese, we seem to 12 OUR neighbors: the Chinese be safe in saying that before tbey settled down into something like permanent occu- pation of the modern province Shensi, they were a nomadic people. I think it is not at all unreasonable to point to the roofs of Chinese houses as an indication, if not a proof, that they borrowed the form which their tents took. If a large square tent is supported by poles at the four corners, the material will droop from the poles to the center of each side and until at the middle of the side it begins to rise again towards the next post. That sharp upward turn at the corners and the sag along the sides is called a " catenary curve," and it is an un- mistakable feature of all Chinese permanent structures. ^ The similarity between the eaves of a Chinese building and the sag of a tent, can hardly be accounted for in any other way. Another indication of the nomadic life of the Chinese in absolutely prehistoric times, is the fact that among the most primi- tive ideographs of their written language, there are some which fully warrant the as- sumption that they had many sheep and cattle. Later ideographs, chronologically, indicate that the Chinese were agricultur- ists. Inasmuch as flocks of sheep and herds of cattle have been almost unknown in China proper for centuries, the story told WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 13 by the earliest ideographs and the evolution of the agricultural ones, is more than inter- esting. An ideograph, it may be explained, is a written symbol, usually derived from a pic- ture of a concrete object, which contains in itself a complete idea. Of course, as learn- ing advances, these ideographs are devised to convey abstract ideas. But the ideo- graph always stands as the very antithesis of an alphabetic language. It is probably true that the use of those ideographs served to retard the development of the Chinese beyond a certain point. This, however, is a subject to which we must return in a later chapter. Even if the Chinese nomads did traverse the almost uninhabited regions of Western Central Asia, where there Avas practically nobody to oppose their progress, we may be quite sure that when they had crossed the mountains and desert, and emerged into the province of Kansuh they promptly found the inhabitants ready to fight with them in defense of their homes. For the Chinese were not the first inhabitants of that coun- try. " Aborigines " is a word that is loosely used, and it is impossible to say that the people whom the Chinese found in Shensi wore absolutely aborigines. That province of Shensi is just west of the great bend of 14 OUR neighbors: the Chinese the Yellow River which is here forced by the Peling Mountains to turn sharply to the east after coming down in an almost straight course from the Mongolian fron- tier and the Altai Shan. The Chinese conquered the aborigines, it is true, but they were rarely guilty of a di- rect effort to exterminate on a wholesale scale, and they probably remained quietly in Shensi for some time. Then they pushed themselves farther and farther south and west; but they were strangely slow in get- ting into the east and southeast or the rich coast provinces. Eventually, however, they became masters of China: that is the eight- een provinces of what the peoi)le meant when they spoke of Chung-kwoh; it did not for- merly include Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and the outlying possessions toward the west and northwest. I do not know if the name is now used inclusively or not; but I suppose it is. At any rate when the famous Chinese his- torian Sz-ma Ts'ien appeared, in the first century B. C, he declared that during the later years of the Chou Dynasty, or from 827 to 255 B. C, the records of his country become reliable, and his opinion has been confirmed by some bamboo slips bearing in- cised writing — done with a style — that were found in A. D. 284 in the grave of a WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 15 feudal chief who had lived in North China during the fourth century B. C. In Sz-ma Ts'ien's time, the eighteen provinces were not organized as they were subsequently, but the Chinese State had been firmly estab- lished. CHAPTER II TEE BEPUBLIC OF CHINA ALTHOUGH we have been accustomed, and quite properly, to think of China as the oldest continuous imperial govern- ment in the world, as a matter of fact the united China proper, that is the eighteen provinces which are considered when a true Chinese speaks of the Middle Kingdom, be- came a united State only about two thou- sand years ago. The great Emperor Shih Hwang Ti (often spoken and written of as Ch'in Hsih Huang) effected the union of the various feudal states that had main- tained a sort of independence until that time. He then divided the country into thirty-six provinces and to each he appointed three high rank officials to administer the affairs of that particular province. The of- ficials were held to be directly responsible to the emperor himself, and the system then established continued without material change until the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty which abdicated February 12, 1912. This statement in no way impugns that which has been made by so many writers as to the great age and continuity of the 16 THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 17 Chinese nation. Its history is remarkable and for many reasons. Even if a wonderful and radical change has recently taken place in the form of government, that does not break the sequence of the historical record. There were other great States which rivaled China in the matter of antiquity: Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, and later Rome, for ex- ample. They were created by remarkable men ; they were for a time contemporaneous with China ; they reached the zenith of their development in extent and power; but they passed away while China continued to exist, and still exists with a new lease of strength and possibilities which promises well for the future. If a republic in form of government and in being representative of the whole people is something entirely new in China, it can- not be truthfully said that the idea in cer- tain senses is altogether an unknown one to the Chinese. The people of that land have always been surprisingly democratic in some respects, and all authorities agree in say- ing that wliile the Chinese gave little heed to what was happening on and around the throne at tlie capital — wherever that might be for the moment, — they insisted upon hav- ing more than a merely feeble voice as to how the affairs of their own province, city, or village should be administered. Thev 18 OUR neighbors: the Chinese did not actually demand popular repre- sentation in the way that is coming to them now, but they long ago showed a spirit which — when properly trained and fairly con- trolled — will probably fit them to exercise republican rights in a surprisingly satis- factory manner. Socialism has never attained such popu- larity as to make it a prominent factor in the spirit of the Chinese people or in their institutions; yet there are several recorded instances of a disposition on the part of some fairly strong men in China to give to the people more consideration than they had. The most conspicuous example of this sort of socialism, was that proposed by Wan g An-shih during the reign of Emperor 'Shen'lDsung (Chin Tsong II, A. D. 1068 to 1086) of the great Sung dynasty. That Emperor himself was so much im- pressed with what this man suggested that he did try to put the radical ideas into prac- tise. The principal features of this reform were. First : Taxes to be paid in produce and manufactures; the surplus of produce and commodities to be purchased by the Govern- ment. They were then to be sent to those parts of the Empire where there was a de- mand and sold for a reasonable profit. The direct intention of this scheme was to do away with middlemen and unscrupulous THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 19 merchants. Second: the Government was to advance money to the farmers who had no means or insufficient capital; these loans to be repaid after the harvest. The rate of interest on such advances was to be two per cent, per month. This, of course, seems to us usurious ; but it should be borne in mind that money sharks in China were then, as they are likely to be now, extorting from fifty to two hundred per cent, from any un- fortunate farmer who fell into their clutches. Third: conscription was to be introduced. The Empire was to be divided into districts according to families, and each family with more than one son was to give one for mili- tary service. In times of peace those men were to pursue their customary avocation; but when war broke out they were to be called to the colors and must be ready to go at once to the seat of war. Fourth: until the time of An-shih all public works had been constructed by compulsory labor. It was now proposed to levy an income tax upon each family in order to provide funds for these public works. Of all the reforms this is said to have met with the most vio- lent opposition. The experiment was tried for a time, but it did not prove successful and before long the laws promulgated by the Emperor to carry into effect tlie proj)osed reforms were annulled. It will be remem- 20 OUR neighbors: the Chinese bered that Kang Yu-wei, as adviser of the late Emperor Kwang Hsii, advocated some- what similar reform and secured a favorable hearing from his imperial patron. If he had not managed to get out of the country he would have been executed, as were so many of his friends, by the great Empress Dowager. The flag which has been adopted by the Chinese Republic itself indicates how far from their past the new rulers at least hope they have gone. The old flag was an elon- gated triangle, called technically a pennant, its base towards the staff, yellow in color, with a notched or saw-tooth edge, and in the center a curving, twisting, snarling dragon. It was typical in every way. The color stood for the rulers, the hated Manchus ; the edge typified the rough attitude that the Manchu Government adopted towards all people in every direction; the dragon was peculiarly Chinese, breathing forth fire to consume whatever stood before it. It was not a pretty banner, no matter how we con- sider it : in shape, color, or design ; and as a whole it was as blatant as the threats which' the Peking Government used to make, for there never was one of them that the au- thorities could enforce. The new flag is appropriate in form, for it is that which has been adopted conven- THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 21 tionally by all nations as an ensign, and the design is emblematic. There is just a little imitation of the Star Spangled Banner, be- cause the five stripes indicate a union of the many principal factors in the new state, as do the thirteen stripes in our flag stand for the thirteen original colonies which banded themselves together to form the United States of America. But the five factors in the Chinese Ee- public are not distinct yet co-ordinate states. They tell us that the Chinese Empire was and the Chinese Republic is a coalition of several peoples who are all of Mongoloid type. To the topmost stripe of the flag the Chinese themselves have laid claim, thus as- suming precedence over the Manchus; there- fore the red stripe stands for the 407,253,000 people of the eighteen provinces of China proper. It is rather strange that they should have chosen this color for them- selves, because they are not really a martial people and red is the recognized sign of the god of war. The next stripe from the top is yellow and it is to represent the 16,000,- 000 people of Manchuria. The pale blue color of the next lower stripe is for the 2,600,000 inhabitants of :Mongolia. The next stripe, white, is for the 6,500,000 people of Tibet, while the black stripe at the bot- tom is for the 1,200,000 peoples of Chinese 22 OUR neighbors: the Chinese Turkestan, etc., nearly all of whom are Ma- hometans. I have taken my figures from the last edi- tion of the Statesman's Year Book, but I entirely agree with the Hon. W. W. Rock- hill, who is now our Ambassador to Turkey, but who was for several years Minister to China, and before that a great traveler throughout the Chinese Empire. Mr. Rockhill thinks that the population of China proper is probably less than 270,000,- 000 at the present time. I add that my own opinion is that when a proper census is taken of the Chinese Republic in extenso (if that time ever comes) it will be found that the 433,553,030 shrinks by much more than one hundred millions; and this opinion has been confirmed by several Europeans, gen- erally Germans or Frenchmen, who have re- cently had better opportunity for travel in the interior of China than I. Even so, in the matter of population the Chinese Re- public at once takes a prominent place in the world, and the character of the popula- tion is high. When we come to areas, it is easier to tell more precisely what the extent of the Chinese Republic is, because geographical divisions are more readily defined and meas- ured than is population. The eighteen provinces of China proper have an area, THE EEPUBLIC OF CHINA 23 estimated it is true, as is the case with all other divisions, yet fairly exact, of 1,532,- 420 square miles, Manchuria 303,610, Mon- golia 1,367,600, Tibet 463,200, Chinese Turkestan, etc., 550,340, a grand total of 4,277,170; as against that of the United States including all outlying possessions of 3,699,076 square miles. So that the newest Republic in size is decidedly the largest in the world. China's right to include all of Manchuria is disputed by Russia and Japan ; and Rus- sia would certainly declare that the Chinese Republic has little or nothing to say about Mongolia, and little, if anything, about Eastern Turkestan, etc., yet it is to be hoped that when the great Powers of the world have followed the example of the United States in recognizing the Republic of China and have shown a disposition to admit and uphold her lawful claims, all of these out- lying portions may be restored absolutely. Not only so, but there Avill probably be evinced a willingness to restore such places as Weihaiwei, Kiaochau (Tsintau), and perhaps others that are not of much use or benefit to the European Powers that have secured possession of them. People of the United States are naturally inclined to judge of our Chinese neiglibors by the coolies, laundrymen, house servants, 24 OUR neighbors: the Chinese shop-keepers, and others who are conspicu- ous; and because of the preponderance of the first two classes to set their standard of Chinese intelligence at a rather low point. This is most unfair. I do not mean to intimate that our Chinese neighbors are conspicuous for education, but there are really very few Chinese, above the peasant class, who cannot read and write a little. Their ideographic language makes it possi- ble for a person to learn the few score, or possibly few hundreds, characters that are useful in his particular trade, without his bothering himself to learn a great number of those which specifically pertain to some other occupation. The market gardener knows how to make the symbols that stand for his wares ; the laundryman has command of his own special vocabulary, and so with others. In a certain sense the same limita- tion exists among our own lower classes, whose vocabulary it will be found is aston- ishingly limited; and even people who are properly credited with a fair education do not as a rule make use of more than a few thousand words. It would take very much more space than is at my command to give a complete descrip- tion of the natural features of the Great Eepublic of China. Every phase of natural scenery is to be found in some portion or THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 25 another thereof. Along the eastern coast there are smiling valleys in which the culti- vated fields come down so far that their protecting dikes are lapped by the sea waves; or there are stretches of clear sandy beach, where bathing is to be enjoyed to the fullest, or there are bold, rocky headlands that stand as a menace to the unwary navi- gator or as protecting giants, according as one is disposed to look upon them. Back from the coast in the innumerable river valleys, agriculture of every kind is carried on with an incisiveness which makes the beholder marvel that man, with the ap- parently inadequate accessories which the Chinese agriculturalist possesses, can have done so much. Yet it has to be admitted that when the crops are measured by pounds or bushels or whatever the standard may be, and the value computed by prices the farmer receives, the return is absurdly inadequate. There ought to be some great missionary work done among the agricultural classes of China to enable them to get nearer one hundred cents value for each dollar's worth of labor, seed, and fertilizer that they put into their fields than they now secure. But it will be a long and discouraging task, because the conservatism of the Chinese peasant is almost adamantine. To change from the time-honored ways of his fore- 26 OUR neighbors: the Chinese fathers will seem to him both useless and actually dishonorable. Yet this is only one of the changes that must come to Republican China. In picturesqueness the river valleys of China need fear no comparison with the rest of the world. Their lower reaches will seem tame, because they flow through such wide stretches of flat country, yet this is markedly true of the Yang-tze only. The southernmost river of some importance, is the White River that flows past Canton and empties into the bay between Hong- kong and Macao at Boca Tigres, " The Tiger's Mouth." This is just below Whampoa, which place itself offers much of interest both historically and scenically ; as soon as one enters the river it recalls the episodes of a century ago, when Europe was insisting upon the right to trade and to trade as contributed most to the pockets of British and other alien subjects. The his- tory will arouse varying sensations accord- ing to the sentiments of the traveler. Thence up that same river, which bears many Chinese names, to the head of naviga- tion there is abundance of that which is picturesque in every way. As it is practically impossible to ascend the great Yang-tze River from mouth to source, it is well now that we are in the THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 27 region where it begins, to pass from the headwaters of the White Kiver into the mountains of Tibet. It will be noticed that this, the greatest river of Asia, as well as the Mekong that flows down into the Shan States and French Indo-China, are very neighborly, and furthermore that the great Brahmaputra, is not far away. In that great world of mountains, the extreme eastern portion of the Himalayas, there is everything that the seeker after a mingling of the picturesque with a spice of danger can ask. The Imperial Government of China never did succeed in establishing firmly its rule so as to make traveling per- fectly secure for the explorer in this region, and fhe Republic will probably have a good deal to do before it can accomplish that same desired end. Still it need not be fatal '' to go there and there remains something for the explorer yet to do, besides enjoying mountain scenery that is wonderful. If one were to combine the Chinese rec- ords of the Hoang-ho, we call it the Yellow River, with the accounts that interested and observing strangers have given us, it would be a long and pathetic story. Most properly have the Chinese people given to that way- ward river the pseudonym which means " China's Sorrow," because neither wars nor oppressions have begun to bring a tithe of 28 OUR neighbors: the Chinese the sorrow that the river has caused the people from time almost immemorial. Its name " Yellow " is well chosen because of the muddy color of the water ; but what does that earthy tint imply? Follow up the stream from its present mouth on the Gulf of Chihli and note the bare hills, and then the bare mountains. Their sides are now scarcely more than naked rocks; yet there was a time far back in history when those hills and mountains were covered with dense forests. Had there been a glimmer of the science of forest conservation in those remote ages, there would be none of those terrible tales of " China's Sorrow " sweeping to death a mil- lion or more people in one flood. The money value of the damage wrought by the river cannot be computed. But the sense- less destruction of forests has always been the greatest curse of the Chinese people, and nothing is being done even now to compel them to mend their ways. After rivers, one naturally thinks of lakes. Of these there are no great ones in any part of the Republic. The Chinese themselves admire almost extravagantly what is called the Poyang Lake, but it is really nothing more than the spreading out of the Yang-tze River into a great depres- sion south of the river and near the city THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 29 of Hankow. Yet this lake figures largely in art and poetry. Scattered all over the Republic there are many small mountain tarns, that would be popular and attractive were it not for the naked hills which surround them. What the future may bring forth it is hazardous to say, but it is possible that as the rule of authority extends and facilities for travel- ing in the interior become greater, some of these mountain lakes may become as pop- ular summer resorts as are several of the Japanese lakes. CHAPTER III MYTHS ABOUT CREATION AND OTHER THINGS FUH-HI is said to have been tlie first earthly sovereign who ruled in any part of the domain that we call China. His accession is placed at some time between 3,322 to 2,852 B. C, and with him com- mences the period which the Chinese know by the title of " The Time of Higkest An- tiquity." Yet before Fuh-hi back to the creation of heaven and earth, there was an interval of at least five hundred thousand years. Because of a similarity in the sound of that first earthly sovereign's name " Fuh " with the name which the Chinese give to Buddha, " Fuh " or " Foh," some Chinese declare that they were one and the same person, but it is needless to say this confusion is without a semblance of founda- tion. There are innumerable myths and legends connected with the creation to be found in Chinese literature. This is just what we should be lead to expect of a people so in- tensely superstitious as practically all of the Chinese were, and as many of them are 30 MYTHS 31 even now. Yet not all of them were so childishly superstitious. One of the best and cleverest of their historians, Yang Tse who is often quoted bv the earliest Ameri- can and European writers about China, de- clared : " Who knows the affairs of remote antiquity, since no authentic records have come down to us? He who examines those stories will find it difficult to believe them, and careful scrutiny will convince him that they are without foundation. In the primeval ages no historical records were kept. Why then, since the ancient books that described those times were burned by Tsin, should we misrepresent those remote ages, and satisfy ourselves with vague fables? However, as everything except Heaven and Earth must have had a cause, it is clear that they have always existed, and that cause produced all sorts of men and beings, and endowed them with their various qualities. But it must have been man who in the beginning produced all things on earth, and who may therefore be viewed as the lord and from whom rulers derived their dignities." The ordinary Chinese philosophers of ancient times felt called upon to advance some sort of theory as to the creation of the world. Having no idea of a Supremo God, by whom all things were created, they de- 32 OUR NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE vised a theory which satisfied them and those who listened to them, or afterwards read their writings. According to this the- ory there were two great and mysterious principles in nature, the male and the fe- male or as they called them " The Yang," which was strong or hard, and " The Yin," which was weak or soft. These produced heaven and earth in very much the same way as children are born to human parents, and afterwards all things were similarly pro- duced. One of those philosophers explained this theory concisely thus : Keason produced one; one produced two; two produced three ; three produced all things. But what was Keason? Some give it the name of Tae-keih; but this is not at all satisfactory for it means simply " Great Power." By this scheme of creation, then, heaven and earth were separated in a measure; yet all was chaos. Then appeared Pwanku or P'au Ku, who was the first inhabitant of this earth. One legendary explanation of this name is interesting and ingenious: Pwan means a " basin," referring to the shell of an eri;g; Ku means " solid or to se- cure," intending to show how the first man Pwanku was hatched from the chaos by the dual powers, and then settled and exhibited the arrangement of the causes which pro- MYTHS 33 duced him. Pwanku set himself to the task of giving form to the heavens and the earth. With a mighty chisel and mallet he split off and fashioned the great masses of granite that surrounded him. Through some of the openings thus made, the sun, moon, and stars appeared. Always asso- ciated with him in pictorial art are his com- panions, the dragon, the phoenix, and the tortoise; the unicorn is sometimes added, but no explanation of their creation or rea- son for their being is given. Pwanku lab- ored for eighteen thousand years, and little by little his work developed while he him- self increased in stature. He grew six feet each day until his work was finished, when he died. " His head became mountains, his breath wind and clouds, and his voice thunder ; his limbs were changed into the four poles, his veins into rivers, the sinews into the undula- tions of the earth's surface, and his flesh into fields; his beard, like Berenice's hair, was turned into stars, his skin and hair into herbs and trees, and his teeth, bones, and marrow into metals, rocks, and precious stones; his dropping sweat increased to rain, and lastly {nascitur ridiculus m'lis) the in- sects which stuck to his body were trans- formed into people I '' * * The Middle Kingdom, S. Wells Williams. 34 OUR neighbors: the Chinese It is a marvelous pity that Pwanku's tortoise did not survive at least until men had developed the art of writing, for on the creature's thick upper shell was written — so it is declared — the history of the world up to that time; but the priceless record was lost forever! It will be noticed that lightning is not mentioned in this account. That is because the fire from heaven and the thunder were not associated as related phenomena, until long after the Chinese had made great ad- vance in culture. The anger of the celestial beings was displayed by that fire from heaven, but that it caused the thunder did not at first occur to those simple people. When Pwanku's task was finished there came three mythological personages, who are called, respectively, the Celestial, the Terrestrial, and the Human Sovereigns. They were of gigantic form and are asso- ciated in a curious trinity of persons, heav- enly, earthly, human. Each one lived for eighteen thousand years. In this wonder- ful cosmogony there appeared, after the three sovereigns had passed away, two other monarchs who were almost as famous, and apparently they were much more beneficent to ordinary mortals, that is, later human beings. MYTHS 35 The first of this trinity was Yu-chau, which means " having a nest " because he taught the numerous progeny of his ances- tors to build nests. Whether this means lit- erally that the remote ancestors of the Chi- nese were tree-dwellers, like the Indians on the Orinoco River of South America, and elsewhere in the world, or is used figura- tively, it is impossible to say ; but probably it is simply a fanciful way of saying that the people from thenceforth dwelt in something like habitations, having previously lived in caves, when they did not sleep in the open. The second of those monarchs, Sui-jin, or " fire-man " discovered that by rubbing two pieces of dried wood together he produced fire. This blessed Promethean gift was of inestimable benefit to mankind, who had until then been compelled to eat all food raw. Flesh and certain vegetables were now properly cooked and the people were greatly delighted at this wonderful improve- ment. The people had not yet any mode of writ- ing or keeping accounts. Sui-jin therefore took cords of different colors or materials in which he tied knots that served him as memoranda for keeping some of his records. We recognize in this the quipus of South AuK^'ica. I>3' developing this ingenious 36 OUR neighbors: the Chinese process, people eventually became expert in imparting information to distant friends. Sui-jin also erected a public assembly ball wberein the people were given instruction in various matters, and by thus associating together they advanced in culture. The Chinese records of these myths are so phrased as to lead us to suppose the people were all in one great community ; this, how- ever, is a detail which demands neither con- firmation nor refutation. There are so many other myths and legends which de- serve at least a little attention, that we must pass on from those relating to Creation. Fuh-hi, who was mentioned at the open- ing of this chapter, is given rank and dig- nity of being called " the first of the Five Emperors," who appeared as the mist partially blew away when the purely my- thological era had ended. That Fuh-hi is also given the honor of having been the founder of the Chinese Empire. He reigned in Shensi from 2,852 to 2,C52 B. C, and his capital was Hwa-sen. He must have been something of a philosopher as well as a monarch. In his time and for many cen- turies afterwards, the fact of being Emperor or ruler, whether it was of a petty princi- pality or the empire which gradually de- veloped, meant that the sovereign was also a soldier, for it was expected that he should MYTHS 37 lead his people in war or lie could not govern them properly in peace. Had this principle been lived up to con- stantly by the later Chinese, they might have been able to make a better fight than they did against the Tartars, — Mongols and Manchus. Fuh-hi was interested in study- ing the course of Nature, the seeming regu- larity of the recurring seasons inspired him with a desire to trace the causes of her great revolution. He therefore invented a system of lines, one long and two short, which in combination gave eight trigrams, or Kwa, each one of which represents a natural ob- ject, Heaven, the Sky, Water collected in marsh or lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water in clouds, rain, springs, streams, and also the Moon, Hills or Mountains, and the Earth. They also denote attributes arbitrarily arranged according to the natural object : Strength, Power; Pleasure, Satisfaction; Brightness, Elegance; Moving Power, Flex- ibility; Peril, Difficulty; Resting; Caprici- ousness, Submission. They stand, too, for the eight cardinal points of the compass ac- cording to Chinese ideas: south, southeast, east, northeast, southwest, west, northwest, and north. They likewise furnish the state and position, at any time or place, of the two-fold division of the one primor- 38 OUR neighbors: the Chinese dial kij or "Air." Thus they become the source whence the system of Fung-shui is derived. Fung-shui literally means " Wind and Water," and is the foundation of a wonder- ful geomancy, which contained most of the Chinese science and explained, in an un- satisfactory way, their superstition. Al- though based upon Fuh-hi's kiva, yet this Fung-shui was not systematized until the twelfth century of our era; after that it extended its influence and continuity until very recent times. It would be impossible to discuss Fung-shui thoroughly, unless one entire volume were devoted to the subject. Its most important influence, so far as for- eigners were concerned, was that it de- termined the choice of a burial place, being supposed to be connected with the past, pres- ent, and future. A grave having been located by the Fung- shui Siensang, " Wind and Water Doctor," its removal or any interference with it would entail disaster; hence it was Fung- shui that so often stood as an obstruction to the building of railways, opening of mines, and many other industrial improve- ments. With the change that has taken place in education and habit of thought, the influence of Fung-shui has been pretty nearly relegated to oblivion; although in MYTHS 39 remote districts it is still troublesome some- times; and the determination of a burial place is even now determined by the Fung- shui Siensang. Myth attributes to Fuh-hi many other beneficial things, and after living some two hundred years, he died greatly regretted. It is not the purpose here to distinguish between fact and fiction because of the former there is practically none. Whether it was Fuh-hi, or Hwang-ti, who came after him, or Tsang-kieh, who is alleged to have flourished about 2700 B. C, that invented writing, does not much matter. The art was certainly of great antiquity, and the myth attached to it says that it came from the last mentioned personage noticing the markings on the shell of a tortoise. By similar lines and then imitating common objects in nature, symbols to represent ideas were devised. It will be noted that in this myth there seems to be a survival of that connected with Pwan-ku's attendant tor- toise. Legend attributes to Ilwang-ti the first use of brick in architecture, building of villages and cities, and the establishing of the people in fixed centers, about which they were commanded and taught to cultivate the soil; in his time the greatest order is said to have prevailed, after he had con- 40 OUR neighbors: the Chinese quered the forces of his predecessor Shin- nung. Chinese historians do not lay much stress upon this apparent rebellion if such it was. Hwang-ti is said to have built an observatory and to have corrected the cal- endar; to have invented arms, carts, boats, water-clocks, chariots, and an ingenious musical instrument. He also introduced coined money and fixed the standards of weights and measures. His Empress was likewise a remarkable personage, for legend attributes to her the rearing of silk worms, reeling and spinning their floss, and weaving it into material which was used for elegant robes. Another myth tells us that Hwang-ti's son and suc- cessor, Shan-haou, saw a phoenix and ad- mired it so much that he commanded all officials to have the effigy of that bird em- broidered on their robes of state. This cus- tom survived until the year 1912. Myths innumerable gather round the heavenly bodies. The sun, moon, and plan- ets were believed to exert great influence upon this earth, its inhabitants, and all its growth ; therefore change in the color or gen- eral appearance of any one was pregnant with meaning. Any marked change in the appearance of the Sun presaged misfortune to the State or its head; such as revolts, near Canton MYTHS 41 floods, famines, or the death of the Emperor. If the Moon looked unusually red or seemed to be too pale, there were bad times ahead for ordinary men. Symbolism was inevitably connected with these ideas, and hence we find that a raven drawn within a circle stood for the Sun; while a rabbit standing on its hind legs and grasping in its forepaws a long pestle with which it pounded rice in a mortar to clean it of the hull and coarse skin, stood for the Moon. But there was another symbol for Luna and that was a three-legged toad. This myth came from a legend of a beauty of mythical times whose name was Chang- ngo. It is said that she, like so many other beautiful women, was loath to lose her beauty and to pass away in death. There- fore she procured from a magician some of " the liquor of immortality " which she drank, and was immediately carried up to the moon, where she was transformed into a toad. The Chinese declare that the out- line of the toad may be traced on the face of the Moon when she is at her full. This toad — ^ really the beauty for whom it stood — is specially worshiped at the time of tlie full moon in mid-autumn and at that time cakes of a particular kind are sold. This myth with many others has been trans- 42 OUR neighbors: the Chinese ferred to Japan where they flourish quite as vigorously as ever they did in the land of their origin. Every one of the constellations has its own peculiar symbolism, and there is an em- peror to rule over all these conspicuous groups of stars. This celestial government is as completely organized as any upon earth, with empresses, an heir apparent, (al- though how he succeeds, since immortality is one of the attributes of those heavenly creatures, is not clear), subordinate princes and princesses, a court circle, tribunals, etc. There is one pretty, yet rather sad, myth connected with the Milky Way, that is ex- ceedingly popular in both China and Japan, It is called " The Herdsman and the Weaver Girl." The girl was the daughter of the Sun-god, and she was so remarkably diligent with her loom that her father grew worried about her. He concluded that matrimony would divert her mind from her incessant task, and so he arranged a marriage with a neigh- bor who herded cattle on the bank of " The Silvery Stream of Heaven." The story is found in many books, yet the Chinese and the Japanese versions vary but little. Ac- cording to one version the Weaving Girl was so constantly kept employed in making gar- ments for the offspring of the Emperor of MYTHS 43 Heaven — in other words, Ood — that she had no leisure to attend to the adornment of her person. At last, however, God, tak- ing compassion on her loneliness, gave her in marriage to the Herdsman who dwelt on the opposite side of the river. Then the woman began to grow remiss in her work. The angry Emperor of Heaven then com- pelled her to re-cross the river, and at the same time he forbade her husband to visit her oftener than once a year. The Herds- man is the bright star in the constellation Aquila. The Weaving Girl is the similar star in Vega. They dwell on the opposite sides of the " Celestial River," or the Milky Way, and they can never meet except on the seventh night of the seventh moon, a night which is held sacred to them. Another version represents the pair as mortals, who were wedded at the early ages of fifteen and twelve, and who died at the ages of a hundred and three and ninety- nine respectively. After death, their spirits flew up to the sky, where the supreme Deity bathed daily in the Celestial River. No mortals might pollute it by their touch, ex- cept on the seventh day of the seventh moon, when the Deity, instead of bathing, went to listen to the chanting of the Buddhist Scrip- tures. The seventh moon, of course, re- ferred to the old Lunar Calendar. That is 44 OUR neighbors: the Chinese to say, the time when the pair are reunited comes toward the end of summer and it will be noticed that the stars which repre- sent them are fairly close together and touching, as one may say, the banks of the Heavenly stream. CHAPTER IV CHINESE LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE IT will have been inferred from what was already written in the preceding chap- ters, that the literature of the Empire, and perhaps of a period before that Empire was organized, constitutes a considerable legacy to which the new Republic has fallen heir. Yet if the educational, technical, industrial, political, and many other reforms are car- ried out, the value of that legacy will be greatly impaired if we do not wish to say destroyed altogether. Indeed there are not wanting some Chinese of the " advanced thinker " type who say frankly that when new China has actually gained the position she deserves and is once firmly planted on her own feet, there will be little cause for regret were the act of Chi Hwang-ti ("The First Em- peror"') repeated so far as most of the so- called " Classics " are concerned. To un- derstand this allusion, a little bit of inter- esting history must be introduced here. During tlie time of tlie Chou Dynasty (1122 to 2^)T) r>. C.) China was in fact a group of 45 46 OUR neighbors: the Chinese feudal states very loosely joined together, and the " Emperor " was in reality only the head of that state which, for the time be- ing, was the most powerful in martial ability. In the western section of the relatively small area then immediately connected with the Chinese people was a clan, the Tsin, who had long been powerful. They lived in what is now the great province of Shensi, but their authority extended northward into Kansuh, southward in Sz-chuan, perhaps be- yond the Yang-tze Eiver, and westward al- most indefinitely. They occupied about one-fifth of the whole country that could then have been looked upon as the realm of China, and the number of the clansmen probably amounted to one-tenth of the whole population of China. One of these Tsin chiefs had the audacity to make arrogant demands upon the impe- rial chief of tlie feudal congerie, and backed up his demands by entering what may be called the Imperial Domain, defeating the troops of him wliom he should have acknowl- edged as his master. This master was Tung-Chau Kiun, 314 to 255 B. C, the last of the Chau Dynasty. If we say that a " rebellion " is an unsuccessful revolt against constituted national authority, while revolution is the successful revolt, we LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 47 must not speak of the act of tliat audacious subject as rebellion. But by whatever name we call his act, it is certain that Chausiang Wang, 255 to 250 B. C, was successful, and made him- self master of the whole empire, as it was then constituted. lie did not actually as- sume the title of Emperor, although his name appears in the list of Chinese sov- ereigns; but his son Chwangsiang Wang, 249 to 246 B. C, did so. All of the blood royal of the Chau Dynasty who could be found, whether adult or child, male or fe- male, were butchered by Chwangsiang's troops most ruthlessly; and the process of subduing all the rest of the states in the congerie was carried on effectively, until he was supreme. He then took for himself the title of Chi Hwangti, and established a dynasty which he called the Tsin. It is likewise known as the Ch'in, and some writers declare that from this word came the name China. This is because the first people of the West who knew anything about the Chinese, spoke of them — we are told — as " people of tlio land of Ch'in." It is not difficult to believe that this word would readily be- come " Cliina.'' As the Italians say, se non (' vera, c hoi trovato, or " if it is not true it is cleverlv invented." 48 OUR neighbors: the Chinese This monarch, who has been called the Napoleon of China (although to the minds of many that is a distinction which cuts two ways ! ) was really a remarkable man in many ways, and that the people generally looked upon him as such is evident from the fact that later generations took pride in calling themselves " Men of Tsin." But there were, and there are, good Chinese who execrate his name because he presumed to arrogate to himself an equality w^ith the three great Emperors of the Mythical Period, Fuh-hi, Shin-nung, and Hwang-ti, to w^hom are assigned the years from 2852 to 2597 B. C. Chi Hwangti was certainly a vain man. His vanity, stimulated by the advice of his Prime Minister, Li-szu, made him wish to destroy all records of every kind that had been written prior to his own time. By do- ing this he hoped to compel posterity to regard himself as the very first Emperor of the Chinese people. The Prime Minister had reported to his master that the influence of the scholars was pernicious and their writings merely contributed to cause con- fusion. Hwang-ti's special animosity was directed against the writings of Confucius and Mencius, explanatory of the Shu-king, which will be described presently, because that work dealt with the feudal states of LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 49 China, whose remembrance the new " First Emperor," wished to blot out absolutely. But the real reason for the unpopularity of the literati was that they constituted the conservative element of the populace and were always ready to oppose all efforts at re- form which the Emperor might wish to in- stitute. In this aspect of the literary class, history repeated itself very emphatically in the twentieth century, for it was the lit- erary men and the Manchus who tried to thwart the efforts of the late Emperor Kwang rtsii and those of his aunt, the great Empress Dowager, when they were tr^^ing to make China a factor in the world's af- fairs. It will now be understood what is meant by saying that some of the most radi- cal of the Chinese progressives think it would do little or no harm to repeat Hwang- ti's destruction of the " Classical Litera- ture." My introduction to Chinese literature was through the reading by my teacher of ^an kiio chill yen i, and his explanation thereof. This is an historical novel based upon the wars of the Three Kingdoms. When tlie Ilan D^masty was overthrown, A. D. 190, there was the greatest confusion throughout the whole of China, and because of the many important characters who appeared upon the stage of the national play-house, 50 OUR neighbors: the Chinese it was a period of great interest and the ac- count of the wars between the three rival, petty kingdoms; first Wei, in the central and northern provinces with their capital city Lo-Yang in Honan province; second Wu, which included some of the provinces south of the Yang-tze Eiver, its capital Nangking; and third Shu, which included most of the western part of the country, par- ticularly the great Sz-chuan province, with its capital city Cheng-tu. I have always said that the true Chinese people are not warlike or naturally blood- thirsty, and I am as firmly convinced as ever of those facts. Yet it is astonishing what a hold tliis San kiio chih yen i has upon them. It tells of the distractions of that period, of the clash of armies in fierce bat- tle; of the cunning plans laid by skilful generals to deceive their rivals, and to gain victory when it was not always true that the Lord is on the side of the largest legions. As an illustration of these cunning tricks, there is a story told that one admiral, whose supply of arrows was nearly ex- hausted, had a number of dummy sailors made by stuffing clothes with hay. Then lie bore down towards the enemy and gave all indications of attack. The opposing ad- miral at once ordered his men to send a shower of arrows against the approaching LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 51 enemy, being deceived by the appearance of the dummies into supposing that he was slaughtering the soldiers of his enemy. When the attacking, wily admiral thought that he had sufficiently^ replenished his sup- ply of arrows, he drew off and then made preparation for a serious attack, which was entirely successful. This same book bristles with accounts of the valorous deeds of individuals that sim- ply pass beyond our ability to comprehend. There are so many of them that they become almost commonplace. I have already given one of these tales and there are plenty more for those who care to read. It is entirely true as Dr. Ilerbert A. Giles says : " If a vote were taken among the people of China, as to the greatest among their countless novels, the Story of the Three Kingdoms would indubitably come out first," I had worked hard at the Chinese lan- guage for eight or nine months, when I suddenh' found myself thinking and even dreaming in the Swatow vernacular. Then my teacher said I was ready to hear the ^am kol-u, as he called the title of tlie novel, lie read it to me, but he put it into tlie simple local dialect which I was able to understand, and I really did find myself en- joying tlie book. Manv centuries before the 1)e